Hartford Men's Lacrosse Team On A Roll

The college lacrosse regular season runs from mid-February to late April, a 10-week sprint that nears its end — in the Northeast, anyway — with fields having just thawed and coaches having scrambled to teach, settle on rotations and, if qualified, prepare for the postseason.

Take Hartford. Snow had barely been cleared before the Hawks men opened with a 16-4 loss to then-No. 2 Maryland Feb. 16. John Gallagher's men and Jen Rizzotti's women were still playing basketball well into March at Chase Family Arena. A couple of hundred yards away at Alumni Stadium, Peter Lawrence and his lacrosse staff were working to stabalize a nucleus of inexperience and potential.

Hartford started slowly, losing its first three games, but soon found its spring groove. The Hawks (7-6, 3-2 America East) have won seven of 10 since. They finished tied for second in the conference with Maryland-Baltimore County and are the No. 2 seed for the upcoming tournament, the winner of which earns an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

"Take out the first three games, look at goals, goals-against, goal-differential, and it paints a dramatically different picture," Lawrence said this week as his team prepared for Thursday's tournament semfinal against third-seeded UMBC at Stony Brook. "We had 12 seniors last year, guys who were a big part of our success the year before. This year, we have a new goalie, a new faceoff guy, a few transfers — we're just a completely different team, and it took a little bit for people to fall into their roles and come together."

There's some comfort and confidence with Hartford, which won the conference touranment and advanced to the NCAAs for the first time in 2011. The Hawks are two victories from a return to the national stage, riding the increasingly strong play of redshirt junior goalie Frank Piechota, who sat out last season, and the scoring touch of two underclassman attackers — freshman Jack Bobzien (10 goals, 32 assists, 42 points) and sophomore Kevin O'Shea (29 goals, seven assists, 36 points).

Of coaching a youthful team, Lawrence said, "It is more exciting but more frustrating, too. A lot of guys are so much in the learning process. What we preach is GBE — get better every day. This is going to be a big rematch [against UMBC]. There's a good history in terms of it being competitive and we match up well."

Hartford won the regular-season meeting with UMBC March 20, 15-14 in overtime. The Hawks trailed 14-11 with under six minutes remaining in regulation. Garrett Dollard scored with 11 seconds left to tie it, then scored 54 seconds into overtime.

The other semifinal features top-seeded Albany (11-4, 5-0) against Stony Brook (7-8, 2-3). The championship game is Saturday. Hartford won four of its final five games, the lone loss coming to Stony Brook in overtime.

Piechota played a key role in Hartford's 2011 run, then sat out last season with a shoulder injury. This year, he split time with junior Dan Zenevitch before winning the No. 1 job in early April. In a two-game stretch this season, victories over Dartmouth and Binghamton, he made 32 saves on 42 shots. Against Binghamton, he made 17 saves on 20 shots, the best single-game save percentage this season (minimum 15 saves).

Junior Andrew Cacchio is the third attacker and has 25 points (23 goals, two assists). Senior midfielder Rory Nunamacher also has 25 points, with 18 goals. Bobzien is the second-leading freshman scorer in the nation, trailing only Chris Baxa of Mercer (33 goals, 10 assists, 43 points).

Records At Central

The Central Connecticut softball team (30-13, 16-4) has finished atop the NEC and set a program record for conference victories.

Heading into Wednesday's final two regular season games (non-conference) at Maryland-Eastern Shore, the Blue Devils were one victory shy of the record for overall victories. Central had never finished fourth or better in the NEC.